When Mark Met Lexie
by Caitlinlaurie
Summary: All the times that Mark and Lexie met...that weren't shown on the show. The story of how they were strangers, friends, lovers, and then more. Mark/Lexie pairing.


**Title:** When Mark Met Lexie

**Characters/Pairings:** Mark/Lexie

**Rating:** T, for language

**Spoilers: **Up through 5.21 "No Good at Saying Sorry (One More Chance)".

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it. The characters belong to Shonda Rhimes and ABC. The quote in the beginning belongs to Nora Ephron. This fic is for entertainment purposes only.

**A/N:** This is a oneshot is based on the idea of all the times that Mark and Lexie interacted that weren't shown on the show. The first part is set after 4.01 "A Change is Gonna Come", the second part is set during 4.09 "Crash into Me, Part 1" and 4.10 "Crash into Me, Part 2", the third part is set after 5.03 "Here Comes the Flood" and 5.04 "Brave New World", the fourth part is set after 5.05 "There's No 'I' in Team", the fifth part is set after 5.11 "Wish You Were Here" and the last part is set after 5.21 "No Good at Saying Sorry (One More Chance)". They all fit within the show, and are meant to be seen as moments that happened, but just weren't shown.

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_Harry: The first time we met we hated each other._

_Sally: No you didn't hate me, I hated you. The second time we met you didn't even remember me._

_Harry: I did too, I remembered you. The third time we met we became friends._

_Sally: We were friends for a long time._

_Harry: And then we weren't._

_Sally: And then we fell in love._

—_When Harry Met Sally_

_* * *_

_The first time Lexie met Mark, she hated him. _

After spending one day on Mark Sloan's service, Lexie had come to two conclusions. One, Mark Sloan was an arrogant ass and if she never was assigned to his service again, it would be too soon. Two, he was insanely hot.

From that first day, she hated every bit of his condescending, patronizing attitude. At first, she had been thrilled to be working with such a prominent doctor. After all, not everyone gets assigned to the service of a world-renowned plastic surgeon on their fourth day of their surgical residency. It was only later that Lexie realized Cristina hadn't meant it as a compliment to her surgical skills, but rather as an extended hazing ritual which began with her being assigned a number rather than a name (sort of like James Bond except…not).

But Lexie had been deeply naive in those days, or so she thought to herself later, and she had counted on the goodness of others. When she had imagined her internship and residency, she had pictured a gleaming hospital on a hill with endless rooms of happy patients, ready and willing to be operated on, with happier surgeons who had vast stores of knowledge they were eager to impart to her.

Mark Sloan shattered those illusions rather quickly.

She had been coming off a disastrous first couple of days, what with meeting her sister who seemed to hate her for some inexplicable reason, finding out the man she had hit on in the bar the night of her mother's funeral was said sister's boyfriend, and to top it all off her resident hated her and her father hadn't stopped drinking long enough to realize that she had moved home.

When she had been assigned to plastics, she thought things were finally looking up.

Wrong.

As she had walked up to Mark Sloan's waiting form, she had been struck by how amazingly good looking he was. His eyes were the color of the Puget Sound after an intense and turbulent storm, and his close-cropped brown and grey hair made him even more virile than he already was. As for his body, it was tall and well-muscled, as if he spent many hours in the gym, something she would later learn wasn't true. She had been nervous to speak to him in the first place, but seeing what he looked like intensified the feeling by about a thousand percent.

"Dr. Sloan?" She managed to say, tentatively.

"What?" He snapped, his blue eyes glaring at her for disturbing his silence.

"Uh...I…uh…" She internally cursed herself for allowing her long forgotten stutter to resurface now.

"Spit it out," He bit off, his words harsh.

"I was assigned to your service today," Lexie said in a rush. "By Dr. Yang."

"You're an intern?" He asked, his sneer obvious as he said the word. But then his face had cleared, and he was much more professional, saying in a clipped voice, "Good, all my charts have started to back up and I need a cappuccino immediately."

Lexie had rushed to do his bidding, guessing he was a surgeon who needed things the way he wanted them in order to teach her.

She had guessed wrong.

Dr. Sloan had made her run around without any reward at the end of the day. She saw no surgeries; she talked to no patients. She had been his grunt…nothing more. Her residency was certainly not turning out the way she had planned.

By then end of the day, she had gotten herself into a righteous fit of anger. She decided to approach him while he was standing at the nurses station talking to a female doctor she didn't recognize.

"All I am saying," Dr. Sloan was telling the woman, "Is that when someone says they will have a drink with you, they should at least have the decency to back it up by actually doing it."

The Latina doctor looked bored by what he was telling her, and perplexed as to why he was doing it. "Mark, I have a patient…"

Dr. Sloan waved her off then. "Go, Torres. I can deal with my Derek Shepherd problems on my own."

Dr. Torres seemed grateful for the escape, and quickly disappeared. Lexie, meanwhile, had bitten her lip as she had listened to the end of Dr. Sloan's conversation.

He looked up then and spotted her. "Oh, it's you. Did you finish?"

Lexie nodded, the ire in her suppressed now that she was standing face to face with him.

"Good," He had said. "I am heading out… I want you to cover the post-op care for these patients." Mark handed her charts then, which Lexie gladly accepted.

"You mean… I get to work with patients?" Lexie asked, her voice hopeful.

Mark quirked a brow at her obvious enthusiasm. "Is this not a hospital? Last time I checked, there were no shortage of patients."

Lexie grinned. "I just mean that you didn't… I mean, I wasn't… I didn't work with patients today." She suddenly felt all the hatred and annoyance she had for him disappear. He must be one of those misunderstood and brilliant surgeons who had much to teach…if she knew how to approach him.

She was quickly disillusioned.

"No," Mark said. "Interns don't touch my patients pre-op or scrub in until I see that they have something useful to contribute." He gave her a cocky grin that made her insides curl into each other. "So far, Grey, you have proved yourself useful at fetching cappuccinos and running labs. We'll see what you can do tomorrow."

Just like that Lexie's hate for him returned in full force.

This is why, at the end of her fourth day of working at Seattle Grace, Lexie had two conclusions. One, Mark Sloan was an arrogant ass and if she never was assigned to his service again, it would be too soon. Two, he was insanely hot.

She just couldn't decide which one was more important.

* * *

_The second time Mark met Lexie, he didn't remember her name._

"Dr. Sloan?"

Mark turned to see the young brunette standing before him, clutching Nick Hanscomb's chart to her chest. After he observed her standing before him, he frowned as he looked at her eager face. "Yes?"

"I wanted to give you the update on Nick Hanscomb's vitals, as you requested."

Mark took the chart from her outstretched hand and said, "And you are?"

Lexie gaped at him, her mouth literally dropping open. "Dr. Grey. Dr. Lexie Grey. I was assigned to your service for a week last month!"

If Lexie hadn't been so outraged, she would have notice the tiny, and almost imperceptible, quirk at the corner of Mark's lips that she would later learn appeared whenever he was teasing her.

"Aw, yes. Dr. Grey…the smaller, more diminutive Grey. The one _not _currently screwing over my best friend." Mark had then looked down at the chart, studying what was written there. When he looked up again, he seemed surprised to find her still standing there. "Go away now, Grey."

Lexie had walked off then, muttering under her breath, "I can't believe I called him insanely hot!"

Later that day… when all was said and done, when Nick Hanscomb was dead and his body removed, Lexie still sat in that procedure room, looking down at the empty table. She knew she should move, if for no other reason than to go get dressed and leave with Dr. Yang, but something kept her in that spot.

"Dr. Grey?"

Lexie's head had snapped up to see Dr. Sloan standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his black leather jacket. He moved inside the room and closed the door. "What are you doing in here?"

"Replaying it," Lexie mumbled.

"Huh?"

"I am replaying the day over and over in my head, every detail… if I keep doing it for a while, maybe I will see the moment where it all went wrong…where I went wrong." Lexie's voice was tremulous, but she wasn't going to cry. She wouldn't allow herself to cry.

"I told you earlier," Mark said, his voice frustrated. "You did good work. The patient lived longer because of you. There is no blame for you in this scenario, Grey. The patient's death was not your fault."

"Nick," Lexie said.

"What?"

"The patient," Lexie clarified, her voice abrupt. "His name was Nick. He was a person, not just a patient and he is dead because we weren't fast enough…because we weren't prepared. Don't just call him a patient and act like he wasn't anything more than that. He was. He was a person…and we killed him." Normally, Lexie would never have dreamt of talking to a superior like that, but there was something about the way that Mark was dismissing Nick's death that rubbed her the wrong way.

"Nick Hanscomb, twenty-five years old," Mark stated. "He was from Deluth, but he moved with his parents to California when he was sixteen. His girlfriend just broke up with him, he wanted to get married, and climb K2." Mark's eyes looked angry as he spoke. "Don't assume because I don't talk about it, that I don't care about my patients."

"Sorry," Lexie murmured. "I didn't mean to—"

"Yes, you did," Mark said. "You meant it when you said it. Own up to that."

"Fine," Lexie snapped. "I meant it. This hospital wasn't prepared and I think you are partly to blame for that." She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth…but they were said, and she couldn't take them back. She expected him to yell at her, but she had misjudged him again.

"You're right," Mark said. "My attention was divided. I should have been more focused on Nick, but I had another patient to tend to, who will now live because I helped…and that happens sometimes."

"Everyone needs to stop saying that," Lexie replied. "Just because it happens, doesn't mean it should."

"Yeah," Mark agreed, falling silent.

Dr. Yang opened the door, and looked in at Lexie. "Are you ready to go?"

Lexie looked up, as if she had forgotten that she agreed to Cristina's offer earlier. "Yeah, I am. I gotta change though… can I meet you in front in ten minutes?"

"Fine," Cristina said, without any enthusiasm. She nodded to Mark, and closed the door.

"I have to go," Lexie said. "Good night, Dr. Sloan."

"Good night, Dr. Grey," Mark replied.

Lexie walked to the door, but paused before opening it. "You remembered my name."

"Yeah, like I said…you shouldn't make assumptions," Mark replied.

Lexie nodded. "I guess you are right," she allowed. She then turned towards him, giving Mark the full affect of her large brown eyes. "Are you going to be okay?"

Mark started in surprise, wondering when it last was that someone had looked at him like that. "Yeah, I am going out with Torres and Hahn. I'll be fine. Don't you have other people to annoy? Run along now, Dr. Grey."

Lexie nodded again, not at all put off by his attitude as she left the procedure room with the sound of a gentle swish. She would only later learn that Mark had stared after her for some time before leaving himself.

* * *

_The third time Mark met Lexie, they became friends._

The smallest things can start a friendship… for them, it was a night of slippery roads, a demand for him to shut up, and a recitation of the periodic table. After working with Mark on two patients in the space of a week, Lexie was well aware there was so much more to him than people thought.

One night, after she lost a patient while she was on Dr. Shepherd's service, she sat at Joe's nursing a Midori Sour.

"Alone again? Drinking alone shouldn't be made into a habit, Dr. Grey," Mark said, coming to claim the stool next to her.

Lexie had looked up with a gentle smile. "Dr. Sloan. Twice in one week. How did I get so lucky?" Her voice was laced with sarcasm, but she knew that Mark liked it when she was saucy. _Mark_… it was funny, she couldn't even remember when she had started to think of him as Mark in her head.

As expected, he did not disappoint. His mouth stretched into a grin as he looked at her. "Down girl. Something bothering you tonight, Lassie?"

Lexie rolled her eyes at the nickname. "I lost a patient."

Mark whistled. "That blows."

"Yeah," Lexie said, taking a sip of her drink. "What are the chances I could get you to stop calling me Lassie?"

Mark looked thoughtful. "Slim to none."

"Great," She said acerbically.

"Hey, it isn't my fault," Mark said. "Stop being pathetic and maybe I will call you something else."

Lexie sighed. "Oh, but I do pathetic _so_ well."

"Touchy subject?" Mark asked, taking a gulp of the scotch Joe set in front of him.

"He doesn't see me," Lexie said. "There is nothing more depressing than knowing that I am so forgettable and unremarkable to men."

Mark started laughing, his entire face lighting up.

"I am glad I am so amusing to you," Lexie snapped.

"I am sorry," Mark said, trying to get control of himself. "But did you hear what you just said? Grey, the last thing you are is forgettable."

"Really?" Lexie asked quirking an eyebrow. "My last three boyfriends didn't share your opinion…neither did Alex."

"Karev?" Mark asked, his eyebrows shooting up. "Jeez, Grey, your taste in men _is_ questionable." Mark shook his head.

"He forgot he slept with me," Lexie said, bitterly.

Mark grinned, shaking his head. "First of all, Karev is an ass. Second of all, from the gossip I have heard, he cheated on Izzie Stevens when they were dating last year. He then stole a patient from her this week, and she is supposed to be his friend. He obviously has issues with strong women. Consider yourself lucky that you got away from him before he sucked you into his life and then screwed you over."

Slightly mollified, Lexie straightened her spine. "Thank you for saying that. You didn't have to."

Mark grinned again. "Well, you are my best friend's girlfriend's half-sister. I guess we could be friends."

She smiled at him, then ducked her head and said, "I am sorry I called you an ass."

"You didn't," He said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, I kinda did," Lexie confessed. "Just not to your face."

Mark laughed, feeling better than he had in years. He didn't stop to think why.

* * *

_They were friends, for what seemed like a long time._

"I told him off," Lexie announced one night as she plopped down in the barstool next to him at Joe's.

"Who?" Mark asked, turning away from the blond bimbo he had been chatting up. His interest was immediately and completely focused on Lexie.

"George," Lexie stated. "I told him off… and I told him to screw himself."

"Holy fuck," Mark said, looking at her with awe in his eyes. He then turned to the bartender, "Joe, I need a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses."

Once the alcohol came, Lexie wasted no time in throwing back a shot. "Ugh, that tastes like crap."

"Would you like something else?" Mark asked with a smirk on his face.

Lexie shook her head, holding out the empty shot glass. "Pour me another."

Mark laughed, complying with the gentle flick of his wrist. "Go easy there, Grey. I would rather not have to scrape you off the bar floor later."

Lexie dropped her head to the hard surface of the bar. "Why am I so pathetic?"

"You're not pathetic," Mark said.

"Am too… you told me so," Lexie whined.

"Clearly I didn't know what the hell I was talking about," Mark replied. "You told off O'Malley…that must have taken guts."

"I guess," Lexie said, lifting her head from the bar. "You know what the saddest part is?"

"What?"

"I feel bad now… I feel like I should make amends for being mean when he was the one in the wrong. How _fucked_ up is that?" She asked, her voice squeaking as she said the swear word. Mark knew then that the f-word was not something little Lexie Grey used often.

"Hey, you can't help it if you are a nice person," Mark argued.

"You think I am nice?" Lexie asked, hope in her eyes.

"Umm…sure," Mark said, feeling himself growing uncomfortable. "Do you remember what I told you when you asked me what if O'Malley didn't like you back?"

Lexie nodded. "Yeah, and I guess you were right…he's an idiot."

Mark poured them both a shot and handed one to her. "Here's to you for finally telling O'Malley off." He tossed back his shot.

"Here's to George being an idiot," Lexie said, tossing back her own. When she swallowed, she turned to him and said, "He doesn't know what he is missing."

Mark nodded, giving her an indulgent smile.

She stated. "I am fabulous in bed…no matter what Alex thinks. I do this one thing where I…" She leaned over and whispered the rest in Mark's ear, causing him to choke on the tequila he had been drinking.

"Jesus!" Mark said, pouring her another shot. "Christ, Little Grey! You shouldn't tell me things like that!"

Lexie downed the shot, and looked at him with a puzzled expression. "What did you call me?"

"Nothing," Mark said quickly, surprised at the term of endearment he had called her.

Little Grey, the name suited her perfectly. Not only because she was Meredith's sister, but also because there was something so vulnerable about her which made Mark want to take care of her. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone but himself. He shook his head at the turn of his thoughts. Mark knew that he would have to think of a legitimate reason to call Lexie that in the hospital, he couldn't allow people to think he actually _cared_ about her.

Seeing Lexie begin to sway where she sat, he moved the tequila bottle away and said, "I think you have had enough."

"Probably," Lexie said, her voice sad. "Four shots. I weigh one hundred and ten pounds, so I… I should be utterly wasted in about fifteen minutes or when I stand up…whichever comes first."

Mark laughed, shaking his head at the petite brunette who fascinated him more than any other woman he had ever met.

* * *

_They were friends…until they weren't._

"Well, you have me here," Lexie said, pulling off her jacket and tossing it onto the chair sitting by his bed. "I must admit, I am surprised. I thought it wasn't going to happen again." Her eyes looked around the hotel room which she had spent many pleasurable hours in the night before.

Mark smiled at her, loving the way her hair had reddish highlights in the light of his hotel room. "Clearly I am not a man who can keep his word," Mark said. "The fact that you are here is proof of that…twice over. I promised Derek I wouldn't sleep with you, and I promised you this wouldn't happen again."

Lexie shook her head. "I don't know if I am flattered that you didn't keep your promise to Derek, or annoyed that you made it in the first place."

"I never should have made it," Mark said. "We are both adults; it's consensual."

"Yes," Lexie said, her smile turning seductive. "It is _definitely _consensual. In fact, I think it is time for both of us to have a lot more…_consensual_ in your king-size bed."

Mark pulled her to him, rubbing his fingers in slow movements on her hips through the fabric of her jeans. "You do realize that if we do this…it will no longer be a onetime thing between two friends."

"Is that what we were?" Lexie asked. "Friends? Or were we teacher and student? Or boss and grunt? Or just Lexie and Mark?"

"We were all of those," Mark said, ghosting his lips close to her ear. "I never would have laughed and talked with you after sex if we weren't friends. And I never would have worried about hurting you if I wasn't your teacher. And I wouldn't have tried to stop it from happening again if I weren't your boss. And I never would have _wanted_ it to happen again if I wasn't Mark…and if you weren't Lexie."

Lexie smiled, her eyes glowing. "And you thought you weren't good at this. I have never been so happy to be propositioned in a bar before."

Mark looked affronted. "I didn't proposition you. I calmly said that I was heading back to my room, and I wanted you to come."

Lexie raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, so maybe I propositioned you a little bit," Mark admitted.

Lexie laughed. "Damn right, you did."

"So are we really going to toss our friendship away? Such as it was?" He asked.

"Well, there is no reason we can't have both," Lexie said. "The friendship and the sex."

"I'm game if you are," Mark stated.

Lexie laughed. "Somehow I thought you would be."

He kissed her then, and as his lips touched hers, he vaguely wondered how he had stayed away from her all day. Staying away from Lexie Grey was the stupidest idea he had ever had.

* * *

_And then they fell in love._

After dinner was completed, there were a flurry of hugs, kisses, and handshakes, before the elder Grey left. Lexie felt as if her heart had swollen to several sizes to big, and as if her chest was about to burst from all the happiness she felt. So the moment her father left the restaurant, Lexie turned to Mark with a smile. "He loved you."

"You think?" Mark asked, his voice unsure as he tried to gauge the truthfulness of the expression on her face.

She nodded, her eyes shining. "I know he did. He invited you to golf with him, Mark. My father _never_ does that. The only person he has allowed to golf with him in the last twenty years is his best friend, John. Even Eric, my brother-in-law, has never been asked to golf with him."

Mark's chest swelled with pride. "Oh, thank God. I was so fucking worried that he would hate me."

Lexie cocked her head to one side and said, almost with awe, "You _were_ worried. Why?"

"I told you, Lex," Mark said. "Dads don't like me; they never have. I am shocked as hell that your dad liked me at all. I thought he might hate me, and you would…"

"And I would what?" Lexie asked.

Mark suddenly became very interested in his napkin, twisting and folding the fabric. "I dunno," He said. "I mean, if your dad hadn't liked me…I would have lost you."

Lexie stared at him with shock on her face. Her emotions were skittering in every direction as she tried to think of all the meanings behind his words. "You thought there was a good chance that you would lose me…but you showed up anyway?"

He nodded. "I had to."

"Why?" She asked, almost terrified to know the answer.

"Because that is what you do for the people you…" His voice trailed off, but she knew the word he didn't say.

She felt the tears come, and her throat begin to get thick as she spoke. "No one…no one has ever done that…for me…before."

The silence stretched between them as Mark looked into Lexie's eyes. She could hardly believe all the emotions that were coursing through her body at the moment.

Relief, gratitude, happiness, but above all else… love.

Lexie had never been so certain of an emotion in her entire life. She was in love with Mark Sloan. Somewhere along the way, she had fallen madly in love with him and tonight… tonight was the reason why. There were so many things that she loved about Mark, but what he did tonight was nothing but the last in a long list of wonderful things he had done for her.

He had taught her, cared for her, supported her…every step of the way. Not for the first time, Lexie wondered how everyone could be so utterly wrong about Mark. Why didn't they see the wonderful man that she saw?

He reached out and touched her face then. "I would do anything for you, Lexie. You know that."

It was true. She did know that. He had risked his lifelong friendship with Derek for her, and he had done it because he had wanted to make her happy.

"I love you," She said, taking his hand.

"What?" He gasped, looking at her in shock.

"I do," Lexie said, nodding. "I love you. I told you earlier today that I was crazy about you…but that doesn't even begin to cover it. Even love doesn't cover it. Words seem inefficient to express all that I feel for you."

Mark lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of her hand, causing happy tears to spring to her eyes. Not breaking their eye contact, Mark cleared his throat and whispered, "I love you too, Lexie. You are my best friend. You have no idea how grateful I am that I met you."

A sob caught in her throat, as she looked at him with tear-drenched eyes. "I am grateful too, Mark. So grateful."

And there, in the middle of the restaurant, Mark kissed Lexie…telling her with his lips, all the amazing things he felt but knew not how to say.

* * *

Later, when they would tell the story to their children, the emotions and the remembrances would be heightened. The fights and the declarations became that much bigger; the secret of their romance became comparable to that of Romeo and Juliet, a notion helped along by Derek and Meredith, who loved to tell the story to their nieces and nephews. It would become a story of star-crossed lovers and drama, forgetting the reality of what it really was.

Lexie would forget that she had once hated him, and Mark would forget that they had ever been anything but madly in love.

But they would both always remember that they had been strangers, then friends, then lovers, and then…more.

_The End_

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_**Review Please!!**_


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